Organisations and employees across the UK are being invited to take part in Work Wise Week and help create a ‘smarter’ working Britain.

Staff and employers are being asked to spend the week trying out smarter working practices, such as flexible, mobile, remote and homeworking, so they can see for themselves the benefits of this approach.

Work Wise Week marks the start of Work Wise UK, a three-year initiative with government, business and union support, which aims to encourage the widespread adoption of smarter working practices across the UK.

The main goal is to increase the number of people currently enjoying smarter working from 3.1 million to 14 million – half the working population – within three years.

Many smarter working practices are very simple to implement, and it is these that organisations are being encouraged to try during the week:

Allowing staff to come in either an hour later or an hour earlier. This would enable staff to avoid the busiest travel times, effectively staggering the rush hour and making the journey far more tolerable for everyone.

Allowing staff to take a half hour lunch break each day, and then let them leave at 3.00pm on Friday.

Allowing staff to work from home on Friday. Even a small reduction in the number of people travelling on that day will have a significant impact on congestion and overcrowding.

Phil Flaxton, chief executive of the IT Forum Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that is backing the campaign, said: “The obstacle to the evolution of the way we work is culturally based. We have traditionally always worked from nine to five, Monday to Friday. There is no reason at all why the UK can not adopt smarter working practices, and benefit from the huge advantages they will bring.”